Now the moon her night has shed
Posted on: September 3, 2024
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Today’s song is from the film Karma-1933. It is a special song for two reasons. One- it was the First Talkie film made in both Hindi and English and two- this was the first Hindi film to have an English song in it. Later on, ofcourse, many more English songs have appeared in Hindi films.
Film Karma-1933 was a film made as a joint production between India, Germany and the U.K. Internal scenes were shot in the Stoll Studio, London and all outdoor scenes were shot in India at various locations. This was the first acting/singing Hindi film for Devika Rani as a Heroine. She was called the FIRST LADY OF THE INDIAN FILMS and was the First recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1969….which consisted of a Golden Lotus, Rs. 100,000 and a Shawl. Incidentally it was the last film for the Hero Himanshu Rai – the founder of Bombay Talkies. The film took 2 years to make and due to the economic depression in Europe, Himanshu Rai had difficulty in raising money. The Indian company set up in India by Chimanlal Setalwad to finance the film was repeatedly requested for funds by Himanshu Rai. The company was frustrated due to the time the film took to make it.
The film also became famous for a Lip-Kiss between Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai. It was claimed that this was the First ever on screen kiss in a Hindi film and that it had lasted for 4 minutes. But both the claims were wrong. The first ever kiss in an Indian Film was in the silent film ” A throw of Dice aka Prapanch Pash”-1929, between Seeta Devi (real name renee Smith) in the role of Sunita and Charu Rai (cousin of Himanshu Rai) in the role of Ranjit. There were two kissing scenes in this film, by this pair. The second film with a kissing scene was a Talkie film “Zarina”-1932, in which actress Zubeida (Alam Ara fame) kissed Jal Merchant. This was the first kissing scene in a Talkie Hindi film. Thus, the kiss in the film Karma-1933 became overall the third time and 2nd time in a Hindi Talkie film. (By coincidence, Himanshu Rai was involved in two of these ‘ kissing’ films. “A throw of Dice” and “Karma” were both produced by Himanshu Rai. In one film, he was the Hero(Karma), and in the second,he was the villain(A throw of Dice). Actress Sita Devi was also the heroine in Himanshu Rai’s earlier film ” The Light of Asia”-1925.)
Another false claim was about the duration of the kiss. It was of course not a 4 minute kiss ( in kissing, 4 minutes non-stop is too long a period !). In the film Karma, the kiss was a series of kisses and the total period was just about 2 minutes. Thirdly, throughout this kiss, Himanshu Rai is shown as unconscious-due to a snake bite- in the film. So, it is not ‘that’ kind of a passionate kiss between two lovers.
I was lucky to see this film in 1980, when my friend from the UK brought the English Print from the UK. Later, of course, I also saw the Indian dubbed Hindi version of Karma aka Fate aka Song of Serpent aka Naagin ki Raagini-1933. It is now available on Youtube, I believe.
Film Karma-1933 was made by ‘Himanshu Rai Indo-International Talkies, Bombay’. Produced by Himanshu Rai himself, it was directed by the then famous British director J.J.Freer Hunt or simply John Hunt. The music was given by two experts, Roy Douglas and Earnest Broadhurst. John Hunt was a well known maker of propaganda and Training films. Once he took this assignment, he visited India and also read many books on India to understand India and its people.
The story of the film was by Dewan Sharar and the screenplay was written by Rupert Browning. The film was shot in Stroll Studios in London. The film was based on Indian royalties but was an oriental fantasy. The film, made as a Bi-lingual (Hindi/English), was tilting towards entertaining the European audience, rather than the Indian one. The Hindi title of the film was ”Nagan ki Raagini“,though KARMA was the main title.
The film opened in London’s Marble Arch Pavilion on 15th May 1933. In those days, it ran for several weeks in London and elsewhere. The 68 minutes film was reviewed by every periodical in London. All the papers were full of praises for its Heroine-Devika Rani. Among them were Variety Magazine, The News Chronicle, The Era, and The Star. All praised Devika Rani’s English pronunciation, her grace and her acting.
The cast of the film was Devika Rani, Himanshu Rai, Sudha Rani, Dewan Sharar, Abraham Sofaer, Kander, Anil Chatterjee, Ranbir Sen, Amal bannerjee etc. The story of the film was…..
The princess of Sitapur (Devika Rani) and the prince of neighboring Jayanagar (Himansu Rai) are deeply in love with each other. The prince’s father (actor Dewan Sharar, who wrote the story) disapproves of the “modernizing” ideas of the princess, which he surmises as her converting “temples into hospitals,” “palaces into schools,” “rice fields into playgrounds”—and as the king’s adviser adds—”peasants into cricketers.” The adviser, a holy man, has a plan to tackle the princess: it is easier to put a stop to her radical ideas by actually letting her marry the prince. As the king’s daughter-in-law, her powers will be undermined.
The princess, meanwhile, thinks of a way to make the king of Jayanagar agreeable towards her; he is fond of hunting, so she plans to offer him a chance to go tiger hunting in the forests of Sitapur. There is a problem, though. There has never been any hunting in Sitapur and it could offend the people’s sentiments. The prince is concerned for the safety of the princess, but she is confident in her decision and tells him that she will schedule the hunt just after the local festival when the people will be in a good mood.
The hunt is announced, and the king of Jayanagar accepts the invite although he wants his son to lead it. The people of Sitapur are uneasy. They resent the tiger hunt—and that too by the neighbor, their traditional rival. Moreover, they reason that a marriage between Jayanagar and Sitapur will result in Jayanagar controlling Sitapur. A few angry people conspire to prevent the marriage by getting the prince out of the way.
On the eve of the hunt, the princess—who has just realized the reason behind the king’s consent of the marriage—“if we marry, your father’s influence will prevent all our plans for progress”—is visibly upset. Soon thereafter, an intruder unsuccessfully tries to kill the prince, and the princess is deeply shaken. She is tempted to call off the hunt, but the prince thinks that would be cowardice. The princess decides that while the hunt is on the next day, she will pray for her beloved’s safety at the Shiva temple.
The prince shoots a tiger the next day, but also, accidentally, shoots a man. So the injured man rides back on the prince’s elephant while the prince decides to walk. On the way back among the tall grasses, a king cobra bites the prince, who is then rushed to the snake charmer’s hut. The princess, who is just leaving the temple, is informed. The words of Jayanagar’s holy man haunt the princess: “Those who follow the torch of progress too swiftly sometimes get their fingers burnt.”
She rushes to the unconscious prince, and sits with his head on her lap, praying fervently. Now follows the famous lip lock scene in the film. To the background of the snake charmer’s music, we see the princess bending low and desperately kissing her lifeless lover, hoping to wake him up through her touch. “My prayers must be answered,” she pleads.
The snake charmer tells her about an “old cure” that must happen before sunset: “If Shiva wills it, another snake shall strike the prince again and draw out the poison.” He goes into the forest and brings back another cobra.Meanwhile, the king hears the news of his dying son; distraught, he ascribes it all to karma, and blames himself for earning the ill will of the people of Sitapur. He decides to perform some good deeds: “prayers to the gods” and “alms to the people.” We hear the snake music one last time, as the cobra glides by the prince and bites out the venom. The prince opens his eyes. “Praise be to Shiva,” “Har har Mahadev,” and “Jai Shiv Shankar” fill the air as an overjoyed princess hugs the prince tight. The end.
The film was released on 15-5-1933 in London. In spite of the praise and reception for the film in the U.K., the film was a flop in India. There was anger in the audience about the kissing scene and moreover, unlike the foreigners, Indians had no novelty about Elephants, Tigers, Snakes, Snake Charmer and the Royalty etc, as shown in the film.
A lot has been written on Devika Rani but not much is found written on Himanshu Rai. It took me several months to get enough information on him.
Himanshu Rai was the son of a wealthy lawyer. He was born at Cuttack, Orissa (now Odisha) in 1892 and did his law graduation in Calcutta. He also studied with Tagore in Shanti Niketan. He went to London to practice Law, where he met Niranjan Pal ( son of the Radical Indian leader Bipin Chandra Pal, who was one of the Trinity of India-Lal-Bal-Pal- during the Freedom movement days) a successful writer and dramatist. Himanshu Rai developed interest in acting and acted in 2-3 dramas of Pal. In 1924, he went to Munich in Germany. He joined hands with Emelka Film company, raised Rs.90,000 as capital and made a film-Light of Asia (Prem Sanyas)-in 1925. It was directed by Franz Osten ( who later came to India on his calling and directed many Hit films like Achhut Kanya, Jeevan Naiyya etc). The film was released all over Europe. In London it ran for 10 months and it was seen by King George V himself in Windsor Castle. The film was a total flop in India and Himanshu suffered a loss of Rs.50,000. Still, he made two more films, Shiraz-1928 and A throw of dice-1929.
Devika Rani, daughter of the Surgeon-General of Madras, Dr. M.N.Chaudhury was born at Waltair (Visakhapatnam-A.P.) on 30th march 1908. An Architecture graduate, she met Himanshu Rai at London, helped him in set designing and finally married him in 1929. They both went to Germany again. She learnt set designing and Make up. She also helped actress Marlene Dietrich in her make-up. Devika and Himanshu made a film in Germany. With Nazis taking over power in Germany, they returned to England and made Karma-1933. When the film flopped in India, Himanshu told Devika,” We must use this technical knowledge, but make films in India.”
They came back to India and established Bombay Talkies studio in Malad, Bombay in 1934. He had learnt a lesson that all his earlier films had technical excellence, but had failed to connect to Indian tastes and sensibilities.
Himanshu Rai is rightly credited with bringing Technical sophistication to Indian Cinema. He called Franz Osten, Joseph Warsching and many other technicians from London and Germany. He also invited Niranjan Pal to join Bombay Talkies. Under his supervision, sophisticated modern machinery was brought from Germany for the studios. He ran the Bombay Talkies studio on the lines of European movie studios. There was only one canteen, common for the Directors of the company and the workers( the famous director Amiya Chakraborty was initially a clerk and later the manager of this Canteen).
From 1935, Bombay Talkies started rolling out a stream of films. The first film rolled out was “Jawani ki hawa”-1935, with Devika Rani and the handsome hulk Najmul Hussain,in the Lead. When the second film started shooting…..Devika Rani and Najmul Hussain eloped to Calcutta. It was like a Bomb dropped. The work stopped. Shashdhar Mukherjee,Himanshu’s partner,rushed to Calcutta and convinced Devika to return to Himanshu. Ultimately Himanshu pardoned her, but this came as a blow to his self esteem from which he never recovered.
Bombay Talkies continued with a New Hero, Ashok Kumar and film after film rolled out till 1939. When the IInd world war broke out, the British Government arrested all the Germans in Bombay Talkies studios and interned them at Deolali camp, near Nashik. Later all were deported to Germany, except Joseph Warsching, who chose to remain in India.( In 1949, Kamaal Amrohi called Joseph Warsching to shoot his film Mahal-49 and later Pakiza too). Due to this, the entire set up in Bombay Talkies was disturbed, but soon the second team of Casshyap, Acharya, Chakraborty and Najam Naqvi took over and regular film production resumed.
Himanshu Rai’s Mental condition began to deteriorate due to overwork, aloofness and silent working. He was admitted to Bach’s Nursing home in Marine Lines, Bombay. At that time a script was being finalised in Bombay talkies. As per the rules, it needed the final approval from Himanshu Rai. It was sent to him. He had become so sick that he could barely turn the pages of the script. He clutched the papers to his Heart, mumbled some words and died. It was 19th may 1940. The script was for the film Bandhan.
So, here is the 91 year old English song, sung by Devika Rani. I know it is a difficult task to write the lyrics of this song, due to the music, pronunciation and the style, but Atul ji and Sudhir ji have done it. My thanks to them. With this song the film Karma-1933 is YIPPEED.
( Acknowledgement.- My sincere thanks to Prof. Lalit Joshi,Head and Prof.- History, Allahabad University, for his articles on BT, cineplot, wiki, Dietze Family Archives, article by Sharmishtha Gupto, Blog Cinema Corridor and my notes etc,for information used here.)
Audio
Video
Song-Now the moon her light has shed (Karma)(1933) Singer- Devika Rani, Lyricist- Unknown, MDs- Ernst Broadhurst and Roy Douglas
Lyrics
????
only the star
shine above
??
?? my love
the moon ??
??
but they whisper to you
love you
may the desire
in my heart
fulfil
my life
my forever with you
dont
know
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
September 10, 2024 at 9:41 pm
Arun Sir,
Your write-up on Karma (1933) perfectly highlights the film’s historical significance and many “firsts.” It’s fascinating how it bridged Hindi and English cinema while marking Devika Rani’s debut as a heroine. The insight into its production challenges, the famous on-screen kiss, and the international collaboration is compelling.
I’m especially curious about the diction and dialogue delivery of Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai in the English version, as it would be interesting to see how early Indian actors handled English on screen.
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September 10, 2024 at 10:17 pm
Thanks for your comments.
Karma-1933 English version is freely available on You Tube. You can fulfil your desire here…
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